{"id":561382,"date":"2026-03-24T15:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561382\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:40:09","slug":"jd-vance-role-touted-as-pakistan-attempts-to-broker-us-iran-peace-talks-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561382\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance role touted as Pakistan attempts to broker US-Iran peace talks | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pakistan\u2019s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, says his country is ready to \u201cfacilitate meaningful and conclusive talks\u201d to end the war in the Middle East amid attempts to push Islamabad as a possible venue for negotiations between the US and Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pakistani sources said the US vice-president, JD Vance, was being put forward as a probable chief negotiator from the US side if talks went ahead. Iranian sources have said they would refuse to sit down with Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, or Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who led the nuclear negotiations with Iran before the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officials in Pakistan said the US and Iran could meet for negotiations in Islamabad as early as this week to discuss an end to the war<\/a>, which began almost a month ago.<\/p>\n

Sources said Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was the most likely to lead any talks from the Iranian side. However, Ghalibaf has so far dismissed reports of talks between the two sides as \u201cfake news\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s military leadership has been attempting to take a leading role in brokering any peace talks. The White House confirmed that Pakistan\u2019s army chief, Asim Munir, had a call with Donald Trump<\/a> on Sunday to discuss the conflict.<\/p>\n

Sharif then spoke to the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on Monday, where they \u201cagreed on the urgent need for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy\u201d, according to an official read-out.<\/p>\n

Islamabad has yet to be officially confirmed as the venue for any talks, which neither side has formally agreed to so far. Qatar, Turkey and Egypt have been touted as other venues, but sources said Tehran\u2019s preference was Islamabad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubject to concurrence by the US and Iran, Pakistan stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the ongoing conflict,\u201d said Sharif writing on X on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Jared Kushner, left, and Steve Witkoff at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January. Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller\/EPA<\/p>\n

An Iranian diplomatic source confirmed that talks were expected this week but said that from the Iranian side there was \u201czero trust\u201d in Washington and that they would not accept Witkoff and Kushner as negotiators for any discussions.<\/p>\n

Negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme were still taking place between the US and Iran when Trump began his bombing campaign. The Iranian regime has since viewed those negotiations, fronted by Witkoff and Kushner, as an attempt by the Trump administration to deceive Iran into thinking it wanted a diplomatic solution, while it planned to attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the previous negotiating team, there\u2019s no chance,\u201d said one diplomatic source. \u201cThe Iranian side regards the request for negotiations as another round of deception for the US-Israeli regime to find out a loophole to aggravate the strikes again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The source said the Iranian side viewed Vance as a more acceptable interlocutor. Vance is widely viewed as a sceptic of the decision to entangle the US in a Middle East war and has largely kept quiet on the conflict. \u201cIf the negotiations are going to have any outcome, JD Vance<\/a> should join,\u201d they said. \u201cWith Witkoff and Kushner, nothing will come out of it. We have seen that in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump gave the strongest indication yet that he would be willing to halt US strikes, claiming that \u201cstrong talks\u201d were being held<\/a> between Iranian officials and Witkoff and Kushner. \u201cWe have had very, very strong talks. We\u2019ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,\u201d Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n

The US president has now given a five-day deadline to an ultimatum he gave over the weekend, threatening to \u201cobliterate\u201d Iran\u2019s power plants<\/a> and energy infrastructure if they did not reopen the strait of Hormuz, the crucial shipping route currently being blockaded by Iran\u2019s military. Trump\u2019s announcement of talks helped boost markets, bringing oil prices down sharply to below $100 (\u00a375) a barrel, the lowest in days.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump says Iran wants to ‘make a deal’ to end war \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The Iranians have so far denied that any direct talks are taking place with the Trump administration, but said that \u201ccertain friendly states\u201d had been conveying messages from the US regarding negotiations.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic sources have said Pakistan, Oman, Turkey and Egypt have been among the countries communicating with US and Iranian officials in an attempt to bring hostilities to an end.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s powerful army chief enjoys a close relationship with Trump, whom he has visited twice in Washington, and has been described by the US president as my \u201cfavourite field marshal\u201d. While Pakistan and Iran have complex ties, Pakistan is home to the second-largest population of Shia Muslims after Iran.<\/p>\n

Pakistan also has a close relationship with the Gulf countries, which have born the brunt of Iran\u2019s retaliatory strikes, and has a freshly signed defence pact with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Pakistan is one of the south Asian countries already suffering from the severe economic fallout as a result of the war. Most of the country\u2019s oil and gas comes through the strait of Hormuz and it has been facing costly shortages and fuel price rises.<\/p>\n

Pakistani official sources said the Iranians had told them Islamabad was their preferred venue for talks.<\/p>\n

The White House declined to comment directly on the reports of peace talks to be held in Islamabad. \u201cThese are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media,\u201d said a spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, says his country is ready to \u201cfacilitate meaningful and conclusive talks\u201d to end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-561382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}